Inaugurating the En 2 mots / In 2 Words series, the L.R. Wilson Chair is pleased to present on March 15th 2016 the conference « Law + Tech« .

PANEL 1 – CYBER + Health

Yann Joly (McGill University)Transhumanism and governance: A possible connection between genetic engineering and cybernetics
In recent months, the development of technology that could be used to edit the human genome has increasingly sparked bioethical debate over the question of how these methods should be regulated in a clinical context. However, some experts believe there is sufficient demand for disease prevention or trait selection to ensure that research into human germline editing will continue regardless of whether any binding regulations are implemented. Therefore, normative deliberations should additionally be informed through descriptive ethics methods. We will present the foundation of a pilot project aimed at assessing stakeholder’s values regarding germline editing. The elevance of this type of questioning and research methodology for the field of cybernetics will hopefully be answered through this conference.

Ian Kerr(University of Ottawa)Robots and their Human Counterparts: How AI and Robotics Could Change Medical Practice and its Regulation
This presentation investigates the changing landscape of medical practice as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are increasingly employed in the health sector. In a foresighting exercise, Ian considers some of the thorny law and policy implications sure to arise if robots and AI surpass their human counterparts at performing surgeries, diagnosing illness, and treating disease.

Catherine Régis (Université de Montréal)Should there be a legal obligation to us e-health technology in health care systems?This presentation will give some benchmarks to consider when assessing the opportunity to introduce and define a legal obligation to use e-health technology in health care systems.

Ma’n H. Zawati(McGill University)Research Apps and Consent to Health Research: One Click Away?Tech companies, such as Apple and Google, have recently introduced research kits aimed at providing developers with a template to create apps allowing researchers to both retrieve health data stored in smartphones and collect their own data for research purposes. While the goal of these apps is to streamline recruitment, many questions are raised when it comes to the informed nature of the consent used. This presentation will discuss this issue and assess the type of framework needed to guide such practices..

PANEL 2 – CYBER + SURVEILLANCE

Paul Daly(Université de Montréal)Prescribing Surveillance by LawThe common law of judicial review of administrative action has treated broad discretionary powers in an impressively robust way, refusing to permit the existence of unfettered regulatory discretion, instead imposing boundaries of acceptability on potentially abusive official conduct. But what has been a success in the area of administrative law has become a pathology in constitutional law. When charged with ensuring that government action is “prescribed by law” – that is, foreseeable and predictable – common law courts’ tendency to ensure that discretionary powers have at least some limits has caused them to permit the use of extremely broad powers. On the logic of the common lawyer, although the powers are extremely broad, they are not unfettered and must as a result be “prescribed by law”. In the area of government surveillance, however, the common law approach is inadequate – and sometimes, unfortunately smug: broad powers are often used secretly, in ways that are neither foreseeable nor predictable. To meet these inadequacies, common lawyers need to show some humility, by devising methods of ensuring predictability and foreseeability in governmental action that transcend the boundary between administrative law and constitutional law. These methods, which rely in part on the use of soft law and on imposing a robust requirement of reasonableness on official action, can properly be described as public law, as they are unique neither to administrative law or constitutional law and thus free of the pathology mentioned above.

Michael Geist (University of Ottawa)« Now What?: Canadian Privacy and Surveillance Law in the Post-Snowden Environment »
Years of surveillance-related leaks from US whistleblower Edward Snowden have fuelled an international debate on privacy, spying, and Internet surveillance. Much of the focus has centered on the role of the US National Security Agency, yet there is an important Canadian side to the story. The Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian counterpart to the NSA, has played an active role in surveillance activities both at home and abroad, raising a host of challenging legal and policy questions.